How Dystopian Are We Going?

[Jonathan Meer]

I would think The Net would have to be damn near all encompassing in order for it to even be topic worthy. Think about how many people in our day do little more than troll the internet nearly 24/7, yet it's barely even noticed in our society. After 27 years of something being around, it'd have to be a pretty huge deal for people to even bring up in casual conversation, let alone be a cause for concern.

Human beings care about the experiential. Components of the internet that are experiential (games, movies, etc) _do_ tend to be brought up in 'real world' conversation, at least with like-minded people. Facebook, on the other hand, isn't really experiential, so we bring it up a lot less (with exceptions for ridiculous arguments and the like, which are experiences themselves).

The Net, as described, is thoroughly experiential. I don't think personally that it needs to be all-encompassing to be real-world discussion-worthy.

I guess when I think of dystopia, I would think in relation to our modern day world. Not an apocalypse type thing, where humanity is on the brink of extinction, but where for a lot of people, life has become joyless. They trudge along in their daily activities in sort of a daze. Where things we consider horrific now, would be commonplace and even accepted.

You've just described 90's anti-establishment cinema. American Beauty and Fight Club come to mind.